Conception rates have also tumbled to their lowest level since 2004 – with the only increase among women aged 40 and above.

The ONS data also revealed that women in their early 20s are increasingly likely to have abortions. In 2018, the percentage of conceptions leading to abortion for women aged 20-24 was 35% – up from 33.2% in 2017. This figure has risen significantly since 1990, when the figure was 22.3%

Happening on an ‘unimaginable scale’

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: “Lost in the release of 2018 abortion figures is the devastating reality that every one of these abortions represents a real, unique, human who has deliberately been killed.

“It’s happening on a scale simply unimaginable by those who wrote and voted for the Abortion Act 1967. The child is not given his or her right to life, given no advocate and is completely disregarded as a mere blob of tissue – which could just as easily be said of us all.

“If these babies had been delivered, we’d name it what it truly is: legalised killing on an unprecedented scale.

“Many mothers who have had abortions feel a great sense of guilt over what’s happened. We don’t serve them by downplaying the tragedy of what has happened. We need to face the horror of what is happening behind abortion clinic doors and offer mothers, fathers and clinicians the hope and forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ.”

‘A demographic disaster’

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said: “The government statistics reveal that we are looking a demographic disaster in the face. Our primary concern has to be about the large-scale destruction of humans with potential who have no voice for themselves. But there are also wider implications here. A nation that is destroying a quarter to a third of its future population has to consider who is going to look after the old, the sick and disabled in the future who need the NHS. Will euthanasia be a solution? Will the generation that killed its children be in turn killed by its children?

“The viability of children born earlier than term is increasing all the time, so we have the paradox that unborn children can be aborted in the same hospital where those born prematurely at the same age are being saved through medical procedure.

“The Abortion Act, whether we like it or not, allows abortion in strictly exceptional circumstances. It cannot be abortion on demand.”

‘Christian Concern’ is a trading name of CCFON Ltd. CCFON Ltd is registered in England and Wales (Company Number 6628490).

Registered office: 70 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8AX.

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